


Halitosis

by hudgens77



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Mild Language, Panic Attacks, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosomatic disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6613075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hudgens77/pseuds/hudgens77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>February 17th, 2016</p><p>Last night, Oikawa remembered everything. He's in the hospital now.<br/>Kill me, please. I just want his soul to bloom again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halitosis

 

Things have a strange way of being.

It was January and it was cold. The snow covered the lonely streets of Tokyo.

And I was on my way to my appointment with the dentist when I found Ushijima.

I made a disgusted face just as he appeared before me. He raised his eyebrows. There was something in his expression that I didn't know how to interpret.

"Oikawa Tooru."

I grimaced.

"That's my name, don't waste it."

Ushijima eyed me from head to toe. He opened his mouth to speak and I held a finger and interrupted him.

"If you're gonna start with your 'You should've gone to Shiratorizawa' bullshit, I'm out."

"I wasn't gonna say that."

"...Oh."

Well, that was awkward. But in which parallel universe didn't Ushijima say that kind of stuff? If I couldn't argue with him, it was no fun.

"So," Ushijima spoke; "do you still play volleyball?"

The question felt weird and I frowned.

"Sure, why would that change? I may have lost my opportunity to go to the Nationals with Seijou, and I may have taken a year to decide what I wanna do with my life, but I still practice. I've been teaching my  _ kouhais _ from Seijou, the coach approves..."

Ushijima nodded.

"Interesting."

"Have you become quieter, Ushi-chan?" I teased. "Aren't you gonna ask me to go to your college, just to complain when I don't?"

Ushijima shrugged his shoulders.

"No. I made a mistake, I'm sorry. You're free to make your own choices... and I'm sure you have good reasons to choose whatever you choose."

I snorted.

"My, my, Ushi-chan. You're all grown up now. You were more fun before, though. Anyway, I have a dentist appointment. I should get going."

"Where's your dentist's office? I haven't been here that long, but I guess I can help you."

I smirked arrogantly.

"You're so kind, Ushi-chan. Well, let's go. If you want to be with me so badly, I'll give you the honor this time."

Ushijima said nothing. He just asked me for the address. I showed him the stupid tooth-shaped paper that read the details of the appointment. Ushijima told me it wasn't far away, therefore we could walk.

And yes, I was freezing. But the sky was clear and it sounded good.

Ushijima was unusually quiet. Not like he was precisely known for his eloquence or charisma, but this time there was an sinister aura oozing from him that I had a hard time ignoring. So I started talking and talking in order to fill the silence and make myself feel at ease. Since there wasn't much to talk about, I told him the embarrassing reason I had to go to the dentist.

"...Please don't tell anyone," I commented. Ushijima nodded without looking at me; "but these last months I've been having a bad breath case. Halitosis. It's very weird, because I already went with every dentist I know in Miyagi and not a single one could solve the problem. It's like, how do I tell you? When I'm with the doctors everything is fine. It also catches my attention that not a single girl I've been with since I broke up with Iwa-chan has noticed, almost like it disappears when I kiss them. But when I'm alone I can feel it, it's this bitter, disgusting taste and... Hey, are you okay? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Ushijima's eyes were so open that they easily could have fell from the sockets. He was pale, as if he had seen a ghost.

"So it's true," he said in a choked voice.

I made an ugly face at him.

"What are you talking about?"

"Iwa... chan?" he questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"What?" I spat. I clenched my fists, pissed off. "Don't tell me you're one of those narrow-minded idiots that can't conceive the idea that there's more than one sexual orientation. That maybe, just maybe, a guy can like kissing other guys and girls all the same."

"No, it's not that," Ushijima said. His voice trembled slightly, but his countenance seemed sincere.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Then what is it?"

"Nothing that matters. We're here."

He opened the door for me. I glared at him, but he didn't add anything else so I gave up. If he was an intolerant one, he probably would've given me a lecture or left me alone. So I ignored his strange demeanor —as usual— and entered the dentist's office.

* * *

When I left I was frustrated and hungry.

Not only they had taken a good while to attend me, but it turned out that I had nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Once again they couldn't find the origins of my random disease. The dentist even congratulated me for my perfect and well-cared teeth, and then proceeded to tell me what the others had already told me. That I should change my diet, use floss or visit a gastroenterologist.

I opted for the last one.

Ushijima listened to my rantings about my strange illness as we made our way to a nearby Irish Pub. He was polite and he let me finish without interrupting me, and in the end —when we were already in the pub— he just told me that he could search for a good specialist. He was being really kind and normally that would've scared me, but my opportunist instincts made me accept his offer.

I don't know how —I want to believe it was the beer—, but we talked about many things as we had dinner and booze. It started with volleyball, then we went off topic with talk about different colleges and majors. Ushijima told me I should go to his college with a smirk, and I didn't know whether he meant it or whether he was making fun of me. Maybe a little bit of both.

Then he apologized.

He was serious and I asked him why. He told me it wasn't his intention to offend me about my bisexuality, because actually, he was bisexual too. That took me by surprise, and surprisingly, I didn't know what to answer.

"Ah," was the only thing I said.

Ushijima nodded and we both asked for another beer.

Around our fourth round, Ushijima looked very attractive in the pub's light. An unusual fusion of sadness and happiness filled my chest and I couldn't help it anymore: I talked to him about Iwa-chan.

I didn't cry as I remembered the good times.

It was an advance.

"Can you believe that after every time Iwa-chan kissed me, my breath always ended smelling like flowers?"

Nobody believed me.

But Ushijima stared fixedly at me, took my hand and nodded.

"Yes," he said. "Of course I do."

* * *

 

I was a little dizzy when we left the pub. It wasn't very late and if I rushed myself, I could still catch the last train to Miyagi. I refused Ushijima's offer to stay in his house despite how tempting it sounded. I just wanted to sleep, but I didn't feel that comfortable with him yet.

(I do have to admit that that day had been oddly nice).

Anyway, he offered to walk me to the station and I didn't refuse. It felt good to hold his arm and rest my cheek against his soft, warm jacket, since my steps didn't feel very steady.

We exchanged phone numbers while we were in the station and he promised to contact me when he had information about the doctor. I joked about how he should be proud of himself for finally getting my number after a long Contact List full of 'Not Oikawa'(s). Ushijima rolled his eyes, yet played along and changed the contact names of the people he talked to the most for 'Not Oikawa 1' and 'Not Oikawa 2'.

They were his parents.

How adorably pathetic.

My train arrived then. I said goodbye and just as I was about to get in, Ushijima pulled my arm and kissed me.

I didn't push him away. In fact, I kissed him back. And it felt good. His breath didn't have that flowery essence that Iwa-chan's kisses had, but it was nice and warm.

I spend all the way back touching my lips. I smelled my breath.

It didn't smell like flowers, but it was fine.

* * *

 

We fell into this strange relationship. Ushijima was all a mystery, though I liked his straightforwardness. We texted often, all thanks to him, since he didn't doubt to tell me stuff or send me pictures that somehow reminded him of me. I wasn't sure of what we were, but he didn't doubt to flirt with me or write stupid things to make me laugh.

He got me the appointment with the gastroenterologist and I went back to Tokyo after a pair of weeks. He was waiting for me at the station and just as he saw me, he put his arms around my waist and kissed my lips. It was quick and sweet, tender. I couldn't help smiling.

"I see you missed me."

"Your breath smells good."

I pouted.

"Now, yeah, but when I'm on my own..."

We talked. There wasn't much to catch up, but we reached the clinic soon. I entered alone and Ushijima waited for me outside.

* * *

 

"How did it go?" he asked just as I left. "You don't look very pleased."

"It's not gastritis. It's nothing, actually. I'm a 100% healthy." I sighed. "The doctor said it might be psychological."

Ushijima furrowed his lips.

"Actually, I've been thinking about it too. Have you heard about women who so desperately want a baby, they come to believe they're actually pregnant? They even get the symptoms and everything. Or those people who have so much worries that their bodies become sick because of it. What is it called? Psychosomatic disorder, something like that."

"But I don't want a baby," I refused childishly.

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Then what do you mean?"

Ushijima's expression was unreadable. There was a moment of silence between us and he finally let out a loud breath.

"I'll tell you when you're ready. C'mon, don't you wanna eat something?"

I lied. I was hungry, but my curiosity was a hundredth times bigger.

"No. I want you to tell me whatever you have in mind."

However, no matter how much I insisted, Ushijima didn't give up. So it was me who did, begrudgingly, when my stomach roared audibly.

Ushijima asked what I wanted to eat and since I didn't know, I told him we should go to the same Irish Pub from last time. I felt a big hole inside me and they had good pizza there. It was a little far away, so we took a cab.

I hate fucking cabs. Actually, I hate every fucking big-city-driver. Why do they always have to be in a rush? What's the need of getting as close as posible to the other cars? As if that's going to eradicate traffic. Don't they realize that, the closer they get, the higher the possibilities of crashing are? And if two or more cars crash, in the best case scenario, they'll just make traffic even worse, and so it goes...

Not to mention that lately, my brain feels like it makes short-circuit every once in a while. Every time I see a car getting close to another car, the image of an accident flashes in my mind, I don't know why.

I was getting paranoid and I hadn't realized until Ushijima asked me:

"What's wrong?"

I hadn't noticed how tightly I was gripping my seatbelt. My knuckles were white.

I laughed, played down its importance and told him about my hallucinations of collisions. Ushijima seemed worried.

"We can get off if you want to."

I shot him an odd look.

"Nah, it's just a bad habit I guess. I should probably stop being so imaginative. So much free time is probably affecting me. I want to get into college as soon as possible."

Ushijima didn't reply. His face was somber. He took my hand, avoiding my eyes, and toyed with my fingers. It helped me distract myself until we got to the pub.

"You know," he said to me as we left the cab. Our fingers were intertwined. "I like you, and I'd still like you even if your breath actually stank."

I cackled.

"And I like you even if I didn't go to Shiratorizawa, and even if your kisses don't smell like flowers like Iwa-chan's did."

"Hmm. Shouldn't it be 'taste like flowers'? It sounds like a peculiar taste, though. I don't think it'd be very successful."

"You say a lot of bullshit. I don't know why people think you're a serious person."

"I might look like one, but I'm still a lefty."

"What does that have to do with everything?"

Ushijima shrugged. He had said it like it was the most logical thing in the world. After that and as we enjoyed a delicious pizza, he told me that left-handed people are supposedly more creative. And I teased him saying that 'creative' was just an euphemism for 'weirdos'.

Ushijima tried to act offended, but his grin betrayed him. I chuckled when I saw he was trying to hold it back, and then I eyed the place and noticed two guys that had just entered the place.

"Speaking of weirdos," I whispered. I was sure I had seen them before. One of them had white hair with a few black tresses, his hair up. And even though he was hard to ignore, my gaze laid on the other one, the one with black, slightly messy hair.

It reminded me of Iwa-chan's hair.

"They were from Fukurodani," Ushijima said, as if he had read my mind. And almost as if we had called them, the guy with the black-and-white hair looked in our direction and his eyes widened.

Ushijima cursed under his breath.

The guy let out a little scream and approached us.

Bokuto Koutarou and Akaashi Keiji were their names. Akaashi, the black-haired one, didn't look one bit like Iwa-chan up close. He was pale, calm and his hair was a bit wavy, something I couldn't distinguish from the distance.

They knew who I was.

"Bokuto, we should go."

"How are you?" asked the Bokuto guy as if we were the closest, oldest of friends. Ushijima hissed.

"Let's go," he muttered.

I gave him a look and then ignored him.

"Good," I replied to Bokuto. "Why?"

Bokuto shrugged. Suddenly, he looked very sad.

"My condolences," he said. "I didn't really know you guys, but it must be hard to lose someone on your team. Must be worse if that someone is... especial, for you."

"Bokuto." Akaashi warned. Bokuto looked like he was about to burst into tears any minute. His sensitivity made the hair on my arms stand on end.

"What are you talking about?"

Bokuto's eyes widened.

"Oikawa, let's go."

"Screw you. So it is true?! Do you really not remember a thing?!"

"Remember what?"

"Bokuto!"

"Oikawa, let's go!"

"Screw you!" Bokuto laughed, but it was hysterical. "That guy on your team, what was his name? Iwa... Iwa something."

"Iwaizumi," I completed.

"Uh-huh. That guy, the one who died in a car crash—"

"BOKUTO!"

The sound of a chair scraping the ground was loud even through the music. Ushijima was standing up and I felt like I wanted to throw up.

"Huh?"

Iwa-chan?

Iwa-chan was dead?

No.

No!

NO!

IT COULDN'T BE!

I left the place, making my way out desperately to grasp for air. I felt like I was choking. I needed to run away—!

"Oikawa! Wait!"

The city lights were nothing but a blur when an imposing force made me turn around, and suddenly I had collided against Ushijima's chest. Collided like in those accidents that flashed through my mind, like Iwa-chan when...

Reality suddenly hit me.

I remembered.

"LET ME GO!"

Iwa-chan and I hadn't broken up. Iwa-chan hadn't left to study far away.

Iwa-chan wasn't with me because now he was resting meters beneath my feet after I had bought  _ ramen _ for him and the rest of the team; and when he left and didn't let me go with him, he didn't message me when he got home because he never did.

The cab he rode collided against another car.

"LET ME GO!"

"Shhh, shhh..."

Collided just like my life without him.

"Ushi... Ush-chan!" I begged in a weak voice, sinking my nails into his jacket. "Le...t me... go! I can't... I can't.... breathe..."

Ushijima let me go immediately.

"What is it?! What's wrong?!"

My chest hurt. I closed my eyes tightly and my knees collided against the ground, just like that cab did against another.

Is this what dying felt like?

"I can't... I can't... breathe..."

A heart attack.

My, my, Iwa-chan. It seems like I'll see you soon.

* * *

I woke up at the hospital, alone. And the first thing I did was cry for Iwa-chan.

A nurse appeared later. She called my doctor, who told me everything I needed to know. I had experienced a panic attack outside the Irish pub, when I remembered what had happened to Iwa-chan. He told me there were occasions when a certain experience was so shocking for a person that the brain repressed said memory as a defense mechanism. But the memory was still in our subconsciousness and could be triggered with certain things like, in my case, getting into a cab or Bokuto's questions. Now I understood why everyone around me treated me differently since I finished high school. And why I had taken that sabbatical year.

I would be in observation and psychiatric treatment now, in order to get through my 'Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder'.

"What about the halitosis?" I had asked. The doctor gave me an odd look and didn't answer.

Ushijima arrived later. He made me feel a little uncomfortable. He seemed very worried and I told him what the doctor had said like it was nothing. I didn't feel anything at all, I want to believe it was the medication.

"...but he didn't say anything about the bad breath."

Ushijima sighed.

"Remember when I was gonna tell you something, but I told you I'd tell you when you were ready to hear it?"

I nodded.

"I think you are now."

I nodded again.

"But, I don't think I can say it out loud, 'cause it's gonna sound cheesy and I hate being cheesy."

I frowned. I didn't want to argue.

"So I brought you this."

Ushijima placed a notebook on my lap.

I looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

"I have a diary," he explained. And then, before I asked him or had the time to tell him to fuck off for not telling me a thing, he began talking about how Iwaizumi's death reached the ears of every volleyball team nearby. Shortly after, it was rumored that not only we were dating, but I had gone mad and I acted like I didn't know a thing about the accident.

So everyone knew.

I started crying again. Silently, calmly. Dead inside.

Ushijima fell silent. He tried to take my hand, but I moved it away and glared at him.

"Go away. I don't want a relationship now."

Ushijima kissed my forehead and wiped my tears away.

"I understand," was the last thing he said before he left.

But he was wrong. He couldn't understand.

* * *

 

_February 16th, 2016_

_ Today I saw Oikawa again. There doesn't seem to be any improvement since the accident, and he keeps saying his breath smells bad even though nobody notices. I'm starting to think that this 'reek' he talks about it's nothing but a sign that a part of his soul has died with Iwaizumi, and as long as he keeps his feelings buried in his chest, his heart will continue to rotten away. _

_ He says the stench only arrived when he's all alone. I think he's just actually really, really sad. _

_ I want to help him. _

_ But I don't know how. _

_ He's with the gastroenterologist now. And he dressed real nicely today, although he looks thinner now. _

_ February 17th, 2016 _

_ Last night, Oikawa remembered everything. He's in the hospital now. _

_ Kill me, please. I just want his soul to bloom again. _

I had told myself that I wouldn't cry anymore that day.

Stupid Ushijima. My head hurts and he made me break my promise.

* * *

They discharged me by the night and we went back to Miyagi, my family and I. I had an appointment with the psychiatrist soon. I felt very lonely that night and dialed Ushijima's number around 4AM. I wanted to apologize for being rude. He actually answered the phone and even though I couldn't apologize, we talked until we fell asleep.

* * *

_**Three years later** _

* * *

"Happy anniversary!" I threw myself at Ushi-chan's arms and placed a kiss on his lips.

He chuckled. "I was thinking we could skip volleyball practice today and eat somewhere. Today's a special day."

"Tell me about it," I replied.

He kissed me. His breath smelled like flowers.

* * *

 

Things have a strange way of being.

I had gone through tough times these last years. However, I had learned a few things in the process.

First one:

Iwa-chan, I'll never forget you. And a part of me will always love you. But I have to move on with my life.

Second:

Patience is always rewarded.

Ushi-chan, thank you for never giving up on me. Not when I told you I would never go to Shiratorizawa, not when I told you I didn't want a relationship. Not even after all those times I collided and you always held me.

Third one, but by no means the less important or truthful:

My breath smells real nice. Maybe not as nice as flowers do, but it's okay.


End file.
